It’s 2025. A new year to get ideas, write, submit, and get rejected. I mean, let’s be positive. Write, submit and get picked up by your dream publishing house!

Woot!

But it often feels like we’re playing a kids’ game, doesn’t it? I thought this after I read Julie Lavender’s blog post on the Blue Ridge site. It got me thinking. We write for children, right? Well then, let’s use kids’ games to help us take a different look at the writing/submitting process.

Tag! You're it!

In Julie’s blog post, she equates submitting or pitching your manuscript to a game of tag. I’d like to adjust that view for us and equate submitting to playing FREEZE TAG. Did you ever play that form of tag?

When whoever was IT tagged you, you would “freeze” and not move until another player tagged and “unfroze” you. If you got frozen three times, you’d be IT.

The freezing reminded me of submitting a manuscript. We submit and then we “freeze” while we’re waiting to hear back. Sometimes, we don’t hear back, so after 3-4 months, we can assume a publishing house doesn’t want our story. Then we “unfreeze” and move on to the next house.

Hide & Seek

Oh, this is a good one, isn’t it? Writers are IT. Editors hide. And we have to know how to find them. This is where a good market guide comes in. I favor the Christian Writers Market Guide compiled by Steve Laube.

This is not a fast game like tag. Writers need to be methodical and look sharp when going through this guide. And when we’ve found some publishers we’re interested in the game doesn’t stop there. We still need to go to their websites and learn as much as we can about them.

Mother, May I?

This one can be a little tougher. When we meet an editor at a conference, we often pitch our idea or story to them. This is kind of like asking, “Mother, may I send this to you?”

Editors come to conferences. They usually have an editorial needs list on the conference website. So, we come prepared to pitch to them, hoping they’ll answer our pitch with “Yes, you may.”

Beware! If they don’t answer, “Yes, you may,” and we send it anyway, we’re asking to be sent back to start!

Playing the Games

In pretty much all games, there are winners and losers. It’s the same with writing and submitting. Sometimes, you get picked up. Sometimes, you don’t.

There are rules to play by.

Sometimes, there are cheaters. Or those we think are cheating. And really, don’t we all know people who don’t play by the rules and yet get their manuscripts picked up? And like any child, we long to cry out, “That’s not fair!”

We have options. We can Self or Indie Publish. But we still need to play by those rules, as well, if we want a winning book.

And as with all games, we can be gracious or sore losers. Self-explanatory, right? But we can also be gracious or sore winners. What’s a sore winner? Someone who is puffed up and brags and talks about themselves and what they’ve published ad nauseam. Those who think more highly of themselves than they ought. No one wants to play with them, right?

As Christian writers, we know our publishing journey is all about God’s timing. He’s the best coach for whatever Writing Game we’re playing. He helps us learn what we need to learn. He gives wisdom and guidance. He brings us teammates. He chooses when we win and when we “freeze.”

This year let’s all ask God to take over our Writing Games. I bet we’ll enjoy playing them even more.

Pam Halter is a former home-schooling mom, has been a children’s book author since 1995, a freelance children’s book editor since 2006, and was the children’s book editor for Fruitbearer Publishing until January 2023. She’s the author of Fairyeater, a YA fantasy, and the Willoughby and Friends picture book series (available on her website.) Pam has also published short stories in Ye Olde Dragon Books , the Whitstead Anthologies and Renewed Christmas Blessings. Her first short story won Readers Choice in Realmscapes.  

Pam lives in Southern New Jersey with her husband, Daryl, special needs adult daughter, Anna, and four cats. When she’s not writing, Pam enjoys spending time with her grands, reading, quilting, gardening, cooking, playing the piano, Bible study, and walking long country roads where she discovers fairy homes, emerging dragons, and trees eating wood gnomes.